Jake Hager recently appeared on University of Dutch: The Dutch Mantell Show. Hager discussed his run in WWE, his pairing with both Zeb Colter and Cesaro, and more. Here are some highlights:
On the ‘We the people’ catchphrase:
Hager: “I can still remember the moment when you first said, ‘We the people.’ There must have been seven or eight people in the room, and all of us kinda looked at each other because it was like instant goosebumps. It was like, ‘Oh that’s it, now we see it.’ And it was a very cool moment for me, I remember it vividly.”
On how he landed with AEW:
Hager: “Chris Jericho really gave me the call, really gave me the okay with everybody there and really got me the job with AEW. He was training at Dave Batista’s gym, the same one that I train at, here in Tampa, and my head coach was training him at the time, so we would bump into each other all the time, and, you know, he would kinda see the progression between the fights and you know, he must have liked it, must have liked what he was seeing. And he gave ol’ TK, like, ‘This is my guy, I want him.'”
On wrestling without fans in attendance:
Hager: ‘It’s very different, and much much more difficult. Just the feeling you get. I think it’s really cool that this really highlights how important the fans are to a pro wrestling show and really proves that they are a part of it.”
On being paired with Cesaro:
Hager: “It wasn’t just me and Cesaro, and this is what I tell everybody. It was a group. It was you, me and Cesaro. And that dynamic was something special that came together, and it was believable, and when you take one piece away from it, who knows how the whole dynamic is gonna change?
On whether he felt he needed a manager when he got paired with Colter:
Hager: ‘I’m always very welcoming. That’s one thing I’ve learned is, like, ‘Jake shut up and learnn, and don’t speak so much.’ But at first, I’ll be honest, I was very eager to prove fans that I could speak, and that I could be an entertaining character. So, if you look at our promos in the beginning, the first couple weeks, I was trying to, like, cut as much of a promo as Dutch was because I saw this as my opportunity, like, ‘Hey, they said I can’t talk, so let me do this.’ But I didn’t need to, and that was something that I learned along the way, that this man is great, and he really has this character, and there was something special about Dutch, that he could say very awful things and they would still applaud him every night. There were so many times that we came back through the curtain, and we would say, ‘Dutch, you said this, and they still cheered you.’ It was just an incredible anomaly, and so the first couple weeks, after I saw that, it was very cool to be a part of, and I’ll put it up there with anything I’ve done in my career.”
The full episode is available here:
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